


Bursts of Light

by sahiya



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-11
Updated: 2009-12-11
Packaged: 2017-10-04 08:28:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sahiya/pseuds/sahiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ekaterin's head was splitting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bursts of Light

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [2008 Bujold Fest](http://community.livejournal.com/bujold_fic/88536.html) prompt "Rewrite a scene from 'Winterfair Gifts' in any other point of view." This is more a missing scene than a rewrite; it's my take on what happened when Miles went to see Ekaterin on bonfire night. Many thanks to [](http://fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com/profile)[**fuzzyboo03**](http://fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com/) for the beta.

Ekaterin's head was splitting.

It had been splitting for days, it felt like. Or only since yesterday? It hardly mattered. The pain had faded a little now, but it had left a horrible, bone-deep weariness in its place, and a vagueness that frightened her far more than the pain had the night before when she'd sat crumpled and weeping on the floor of her bathroom.

She felt as though the world were not quite real. She could only see things if she didn't look at them. If she looked at something, tried to focus, it flickered in and out, shimmering faintly in a way that made pain ripple through her temples.

And so she did not look at anything. She lay in her darkened bedroom with the shades drawn and her comforter pulled up over her head. She couldn't block out the noise from the fireworks and the party below in the streets, but that felt as unreal as anything else. As unreal as the pillow beneath her head or the red glow of the numbers of her bedside chrono whenever she dared open her eyes. As unreal as the bursts of light behind her eyelids -

No. Those felt real.

God, was she going mad? She'd wondered last night, last _week_, even. The eve of her wedding and she was going mad. She'd known it was too soon. She'd known, but Miles - Miles had wanted it badly enough that he'd made her want it, too. But it was too soon, too soon -

"He's not Tien," her aunt had said helplessly that evening, sitting on the edge of her bed and attempting to reason with her.

"I know, I know," she'd replied, and yet she could not stop crying. There was no one further from Tien than Miles, and God, how she loved him for it. She was so lucky, so very, very lucky.

But her head was splitting.

Eventually she fell into a numb fugue. Not sleeping - she hadn't slept in a day and a half - but exhausted dozing. She didn't hear him come in, but she felt the bed dip, felt him lay his hand on her arm. She could smell him; patchouli and soap and something else, something Miles. It cut through the fog enveloping her brain and gave her the strength to turn over and look up at him. She prayed he wouldn't flicker in and out, too.

He didn't.

"Ekaterin?" he said, touching her face with the back of his hand.

"Oh, thank God," she whispered, eyes flooding. She'd not known how badly she'd wanted him with her until then. "Oh, Miles, I think - I think I'm going crazy -"

"No, no," he chided, using the pads of his thumbs to wipe away the tears. "No, that's _my_ job."

She almost laughed. She couldn't quite manage it, but she almost did - she smiled at least, and moved over so that he could kick his shoes off and slide under the covers with her. He wrapped his arms around her and held her head to his chest. She could feel his heart thumping away beneath her ear. He was warm and solid and real, and so was his hand in her hair and his voice in her ear. He broke off his steady stream of nonsense comfort only when her aunt came in, so he could ask her to send Roic back to Vorkosigan House - he would be some time.

"When did you last have a painkiller?" he asked, when the crying jag passed. He handed her a fresh tissue from the box in the middle of the bed, and she leaned against him while she blew her nose. That made her head hurt, too, a frightening pressure behind her eyes.

"They don't work," she said numbly. "Nothing works, I've tried everything."

His fingers kneaded the nape of her neck. Wonder of wonders, that did help, at least a little. "Ekaterin, it's not worth it," he said. "For God's sake, I didn't realize - it's not worth it. We'll call it off."

"We can't," she said, though she couldn't muster the arguments against it. "We can't, we can't."

"We can," he said firmly. "For the sake of your health, we can."

She shook her head. "No, Miles, I . . . I don't want to." She gripped his hand. "It's - it might be too soon, but I love you and I want this, I do, I just . . ." Her voice cracked. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

To her relief, he didn't tell her there wasn't anything wrong with her. He also didn't say anything more about calling off the wedding; that was ridiculous and he knew it - there were guests in from halfway across the Nexus and ice sculptures in the garden and two hundred Ma Kosti desserts in Vorkosigan House's walk-in freezer. The only thing falling to pieces was her.

She would make it happen. She'd walk down that path in the garden tomorrow one step at a time no matter how badly her head hurt. She had endured much worse, after all.

But damn it all. She'd thought she was through enduring.

He held her without speaking while fireworks exploded outside and lights burst behind her eyelids. When the big display over the river finally ended and all that was left were little explosions from around the neighborhood - when the year had turned and it was their wedding day - Miles stirred, sitting up beside her. He stroked a hand through the tangled mess of her hair. "Bath?" he said.

She managed a smile. "Is that a hint?"

He smiled. "No. But you might feel better."

She might, but she'd stopped hoping anything would help about thirteen hours ago. She didn't wish to discourage him, though, and she hadn't the strength to argue. He slid off the bed. She closed her eyes and listened to the water running in the bath. She felt a little less like she was balanced on a knife's edge of sanity. Perhaps it was just having him there - and how strange that was to her still. Tien had been abrasive. He'd scraped her raw. Miles's mere presence was a balm to her soul.

She'd have to be going mad to have a nervous breakdown at the thought of saying _yes, forever_ to that. Wouldn't she?

He sat by the tub while she soaked. He'd put the lights on, dim, and poured in some of the very expensive bath oil Lady Vorkosigan had given her. It was so expensive that Ekaterin hardly ever used it, but it did smell heavenly, like sandalwood and citrus, and, incredibly, breathing it in took the edge off the headache.

Everything was solid again, she realized after a long time spent merely drifting in silence, in the soft warmth of the water. She could look at the painting on the wall, at the towel on the rack, at Miles's hand in hers, and they didn't flicker in and out. She was exhausted and her temples ached and she was badly shaken, but she no longer felt as though her mind were shattering into a thousand tiny shards. She could have wept out of sheer gladness, but tears were the last thing she wanted.

Today she would marry him, she thought, and decided it was worth saying out loud. He smiled and kissed the back of her damp hand.

He helped her wash her hair, his hands gentle on her scalp, then tidied the bedroom while she wrapped herself in her robe, seated herself at her vanity, and combed the tangled mess out. She was still frightfully pale, almost gray. Her eyes were red from weeping and her hands trembled. She put them in her lap to still them, and turned her head carefully to watch Miles changing her sheets. She felt certain now that marrying him was the right choice. Perhaps it was too soon, but in the end she didn't care.

But if that was true, then she was not all right. Something was still _wrong_ with her.

She said nothing as she changed into a clean nightgown. She sat on the edge of her bed, listening to the far-away bursts of the firecrackers people would set off till dawn and wondering what she could say. She'd assumed it was her. Miles, she guessed, had assumed it was him. But what if it was neither of them? What if it was some creeping illness in her brain? A virus, a tumor, something she'd never heard of?

"Ekaterin?" Miles said softly.

He was visibly relieved. She didn't have it in her to take that away from him, and yet she had to say something. "Miles, I -"

Someone knocked at the door, once, then again. Ekaterin felt vaguely relieved, as though not giving voice to her fears would make them less powerful. Or less true. "Come in," she said.

The door eased open to reveal her aunt. "I'm sorry to disturb you, but . . . ImpSec is here. With a doctor. They need to examine Ekaterin - they wouldn't tell me why."

Miles looked at her, gray eyes wide in alarm. "Send them in," she said, and settled back on the bed, propped up by her pillows. Her hands had stopped trembling at last.

It was the pearls. Those beautiful pearls that had lain so lightly on her skin and if they'd lain there much longer would have killed her. "Oh God," was all she could say when the doctor told them. And then she burst into sobs while Miles stared at her in shock and bewilderment and the doctor, apparently unalarmed, made her lie back so he could examine her. She clutched Miles's hand and wept in sheer relief at simply knowing that it wasn't her and it wasn't Miles or Tien and it wasn't an awful mysterious illness in her brain.

Someone had tried to kill her, but they hadn't. They hadn't and they wouldn't. The doctor asked her if the headache was gone and she managed to nod. He looked satisfied, pronounced her on the mend, and left.

Miles saw him out. Ekaterin wiped the last of the tears from her face while he was gone, feeling as though they'd washed her clean. Her head hurt, but merely an achy, stuffy feeling from too much crying. She lay back in her fresh nightgown, on her fresh sheets, clutched the sleeptimer the doctor had given her in her hand, and waited for Miles.

He returned within seconds to sit on the edge of her bed and look at her, a despairing, tragic twist to his mouth. He looked almost as pale she had earlier, and she knew he blamed himself for all of this. But she was too tired to make him see reason. The countess would, she had to hope. A few hours' sleep would help as well, and if all else failed, she would see him before the wedding. The most she could do now was sit up, take his face in her hands, and kiss him.

"I love you," she said when they parted.

He nodded, though he looked quite unable to speak. He fetched a glass of water for her and she swallowed the sleeptimer. He stretched out beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders; she lay her head on his chest and listened to the steady rhythm of his heart. From outside she could hear the faint twitter of birds.

It was dawn. It was the new year. It was their wedding day. The space behind Ekaterin's eyelids was blessedly dark. She slept.

_Fin._


End file.
